On Judgment Method for Major Aviation Accidents

The ladder method of three-level step-by-step exclusion, involving understanding possibility, predicting possibility, and confirming through judicial reviews, is a method to judge whether the crime of a major aviation accident complies with the principle of clarity. The lack of understanding and predicting possibilities makes the judgment of major aviation accidents a challenging issue in the criminal law theory and practice in China. Based on Kelsen’s positive law, this paper explains “major aviation accidents” by levels, following the order of standardization, criminality and constitutionality. Major aviation accidents should be interpreted as an objective result element, referring to “direct economic loss of 50 million yuan or more”, while “causing serious consequences” is an internal objective punishment condition, referring to “serious injury to 50 people or more”.